


Book of Truths

by Sticks



Category: Seven Kingdoms Trilogy - Kristin Cashore
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-24 02:04:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sticks/pseuds/Sticks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saf comes home back the Dells. Teddy, Bren, and Tilda show him their latest project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Book of Truths

"Put this in your book of truths," Saf hissed into Teddy's face, smelling of a foreign land and cold tunnels and an empty stomach. " _Don't bed your friend's sister_." Then he released Teddy's collar, let him land on the shop floor, and turned to leave.

"I thought you knew," Teddy called after him, but the door swung shut, and Saf was off to drink on an empty stomach and cause trouble, just as if he'd never left, as if his joyous homecoming had not been cut short the instant Bren walked in with a platter of cakes over her swollen belly. "I thought he knew," he said helplessly to his sister and Saf's sister, who still held the cakes. "You didn't tell him?"

Tilda stood from the table and took Bren's arm. " _You_ didn't tell him?" she shot back at Teddy. 

"No," Bren said, putting her hand over Tilda's, "I should have at least sent a letter through with one of the expeditions."

"Horseshit," Tilda said, sounding so much like Saf it felt like another knife in Teddy's gut. That pain he would have deserved. A black eye, at least. But Saf had not hit him.

"I expected that he'd react like this," Bren insisted quietly. "I should have warned him." 

"I should have, too," Teddy sighed. "He should have heard it from me first--then he could have had months to figure out exactly how to kill me. The surprise was just... awkward." He put away the cups and the wine, and covered the cakes. "Shall I wake you if he comes home?"

"He won't," Bren said as Tilda led her upstairs. "Not tonight."

Not the next night, either, or any night for the next week, until it was the equinox once more, and the shop was full of glimmering, masked, kissing people. The Queen had restored the old traditions, so this party and the eight parties before were not secret, and there were many more lit windows on their street.

Teddy had, in fact, been invited to the equinox celebration in the castle itself that night. Instead he sat in his room, reading a volume borrowed from Death, with scraps of press rags stuffed in his ears against the noise from the next room. It rankled him to miss the revelry, but not as much as it terrified him to face all those people who weren't Saf. 

The book was a beautifully illustrated and surprisingly poetic volume on the many varieties of Monsea's honeybees, and Teddy could not give it the attention it truly deserved. He was almost grateful when the door of his room flew open to admit a cloaked figure, but he went through the pretense of opening his mouth to demand an explanation for the intrusion. Before he could say anything, Saf lowered the hood of his cloak and declared, "I have kissed every other person in this shop and none of them were you."

"You've been at the castle," Teddy observed, full of relief. Saf looked better fed than he had a week before, and the fine whorls of purple glitter across his cheekbones were nothing he could have applied himself. 

"I kissed everyone there, too, and they weren't you either."

Well, yes, Teddy wanted to say, that would follow, and there was an excellent condensed volume on logic they were in the midst of reprinting that might do Saf some good, but he never got to say that because suddenly Saf was kissing him. Teddy tasted wine on Saf's lips, and then on Saf's tongue, and felt the stubble on Saf's cheek abrade his own, the paint and glitter smear across his face.

When Saf pulled away, all Teddy could say was, "You got some new ideas in the Dells."

"They condone all manner of things in the Dells," Saf breathed, just inches from his face. "You and me. Bren and Tilda. You and me and Bren and Tilda." That sent a shiver down Teddy's spine. "You and me and Bren and Tilda and Sparks."

"Unlikely, that last one."

"Doesn't matter. Teddy, I didn't get any new ideas in the Dells. The things I want to do to you are the things I've wanted to do to you for years."

Teddy got up, the forgotten book sliding off his lap. "Show me," he murmured.

Saf did. Then he showed him again while Teddy slept, and Teddy awoke in the night exhausted and craving more, and Saf showed him again. 

"Your book," Saf said later, when the lamplight showed that the paint and glitter was spread evenly over his cheeks like a purple--Teddy struggled for the word, remembering it from the Ps-- _postcoital_ blush. It was spread about on Teddy, too. "The book of truths. Is it printed yet?"

"No," Teddy whispered, "but I just added another entry." 


End file.
